Modern Ruins

This past Saturday I met up with Linnéa Hult and Hazal Koptagel for a photoshoot in Vallentuna. There are many new areas being developed, with large expensive villas popping up like mushrooms. However, in the forest behind one of these suburban areas is something much more interesting, a memory left from an older era. We trekked into the forest, and found a series of abandoned houses scattered around in the forest.

Linnéa Hult. The wooden board was covered in moss, and more slippery than we had expected. For all the photos in this series I was using the Nikon D700 with the Nikon 50 mm f/1.4G lens.Linnéa Hult. The wall to the right might look stable, but it was not. The entire roof had caved in, and there was no way into the cellar.Linnéa HultLinnéa HultLinnéa HultLinnéa HultLinnéa HultHazal Koptagel had brought her go-pro with her, and filmed our behind the scenes video.Linnéa HultLinnéa HultLinnéa Hult. Not far from the house we found a big oil tank that had been tipped over.Hazal KoptagelAs we were about to leave we discovered a sledge hammer, the perfect prop for a location like this, so we just had to go back and do a few more photos. Linnéa Hult helping mother nature reclaim the land.Linnéa Hult, tiring work. So we did not really smash the house, but I guess you already figured that out.Linnéa Hult. Using a window to frame her.Linnéa HultLinnéa Hult. Since I only had the 50mm lens with me we had to resort to stitching a panorama together using Photoshop. This method has been dubbed the Brenzier method, and it can create a medium format look with shallow depth of field.Hazal KoptagelLinnéa Hult. We found a few other houses but the first one was our favourite.Linnéa Hult. This used to be a wall.

We had also brought two Enola Gay smoke grenades with us. So after finishing photographing the derelict houses we headed to Vallentuna Sjön for a few sunset photos where we planned to use the smoke grenades.

Linnéa Hult. It is always a good idea to save the water stuff to the end of the photoshoot, as it gets quite cold after a while.Linnéa HultLinnéa Hult. One of my favourite photos of the day, with the sun behind Linnéa.Linnéa HultLinnéa Hult. Here we used a flash to light her up.Linnéa HultLinnéa Hult. One last photo and then it was time to pack up and head home.

Hazal filmed with her GoPro. Here is the behind the scenes video:

Many thanks to Linnéa and Hazal for joining me on the little photographic adventure!